Well, I'm not sure it's the transport but the player won't recognize a disk after it's been turned off for a couple of hours. If I blow a little warm air on the transport, or leave it on for an hour or so, it recognizes the disk and seems to run fine. It's and Electrocompaniet. Either way, the laser comes on and it does its little start up dance. Any ideas?

HI ,
i have the same identical problem on my cd10 (cdm4 d36), for a couple of minutes at the start (in winter... not in the summer) in the cdm doesn't recognize the toc, i try for many times until finally the toc is read... after this the cdm seems not have any other problems (it doesn't skip or have a bad sound).
I'm having this problem from many years ago, after the laser had been changed because dead in warranty, at the return from the service the cdm was working in this condition (****in' laser or bad setting ?? ), and is working in this condidion also today.
I tried to trim the two voltages of the laser as written in the service manual with few good results (a very little improvement).
i've red in the past that is a common problem of the cdm4, but i've never known if this is a problem of a bad laser or a problem of bad engineering.
I've seen also that in a data base for repairman (which i don't remember the name) this problem is reported and probably there is an hardware patch, unfortunately i'm not registered to this site
what kind of transport do you have?

I suspected the transport. I don't know exactly what type it is and there are no obvious markings. I'm pretty sure it's one of the high end Philips units (I know it's Philips). It's not straighforward to take apart either, as EC uses a damped assembly for the transport. When I called the EC distributor, he talked as if he has seen the problem before. The only cure he had was to send the unit in for a $500 transport replacement. I'm not THAT annoyed by the problem. BTW, my room temperature here is 25-30C, so it doesn't have to be very cold.

the interesting thing should be know some more informations about this pull-up resistor focus and this phantomatic CDM4 PHILIPS tech tip....
this ia a very common problem for cdm4 units, another guy on this forum sent me in the past the service manual to me because he also had the same problem and he couldn't solve it... it's very strange...
On some other post here i've red that the tda7310 is very sensitive to temperature....
I've also read of many problems on the most recent cdm units by philips of 10pf capacitor missed in the mount of the laser card, this units can't read the toc of the cd-r and also some original cd...

Originally posted by DoctorWho70 the interesting thing should be know some more informations about this pull-up resistor focus and this phantomatic CDM4 PHILIPS tech tip....
this ia a very common problem for cdm4 units, another guy on this forum sent me in the past the service manual to me because he also had the same problem and he couldn't solve it... it's very strange...
On some other post here i've red that the tda7310 is very sensitive to temperature....
I've also read of many problems on the most recent cdm units by philips of 10pf capacitor missed in the mount of the laser card, this units can't read the toc of the cd-r and also some original cd...

DoctorWho70

Hi,

Sounds like Newton has worn out the vertical suspension of the focus lens, and the focus servo gets out of (voltage) range. Can you measure the output voltage of the focus servo when the drive tends to startup ?

Had a similar problem with startup and turned out to be lubricant on the slide being sticky. I gave it a kick start to move the laser sled assembly and away it went. Cleaned and relubricated and no problem since.

(Guido) i have trimmed the output of the focus servo for the 400mV as described in the service manual with very poor results... this night i will dismount the cd to check the system another time, last time my test measurements have been done with a commercial cd... not properly the philips test cd...
I've seen that it's very difficult to trim in the exact voltage because changing the cd, this voltage can change in +/-100mV, if my mind doesn't go wrong... i've made a media of various cd
i'll try to do a measurement after the cold start... and if there is a drift in this voltage.
(OT.. thanks for your clock, with a separate power supply it works very well since last year)

(Rabbitz) I thinked of a mechanical problem too... but i need to be sure of what doing, before destroying my jewel
The difference between cold and hot it can be for the hardness of the grease for the difference of temperature...
but did you have lubricate the orizontal swing arm or the focus vertical lens movement?
i could tell you a stupid thing, but i've never seen internally the feature of this laser lens movement, in some other laser i've seen that there is some magnets and coils but no guides...

Originally posted by rabbitz Had a similar problem with startup and turned out to be lubricant on the slide being sticky. I gave it a kick start to move the laser sled assembly and away it went. Cleaned and relubricated and no problem since.

Sounds like it's worth a try. Would make sense for temperature to affect friction. What do you use for lubricant?

I don't think it's temperature related the problem I was having. The lubricant was acting like a glue settling between the bush and slide rod so when the player had to kick off, it had to break that bond. This only happened on start up after the player had been idle for a day or so. I tried Dextron automatic fluid which worked well for quite a while. I had recently bought another player on eBay which would play 12 tracks or so and go funny and skip like crazy. Tried the Dextron with no luck and would work intermittently. I tried to get some Molykote EM-30L which is perfect for the job but have to buy it in 1Kg lots at a zillion dollars. Ended up using Tamiya switch lubricant for their RC cars etc. Works like a charm and applied to both players... no probs since.

DoctorWho70
Sorry... I might have confused you with the laser sled. The player I have has the complete laser assembly running on a slide one side and a rod, the other.... think of a train on a track sort of thing. Looks like the one you have has the swivel arm which pivots on a ball. Don't play around with anything around the laser lens as it would then be kapoot.